Friday Thoughts and Tater Tots

As I sit on the couch blogging someone is doing this...

HALLELUJAH!

Oh nap time...you were missed yesterday!

We had a great night last night as well! Emma Claire slept from 12am-3am and then from 4:30am-6:30am and then from 7am-9am! I am one happy mama!

Cuddling with my sweet girl after a great night. Please ignore the super messy hair/no make-up look that I've got going on now ;-)

And I just couldn't resist sharing this picture. I took this yesterday in the midst of our horrendous day HA! Just goes to show that even with no sleep at night, no naps during the day, and an extremely fussy little girl there are still moments of joy.

A bunch of you asked about my daily bible verse emails I get so I'm going to share where they come from. If you go to http://www.mybibleverseoftheday.com/ you can enter your email and get the bible verse of the day along with a devotion sent to you each day!

I also had questions about my tater tot casserole that I made the other day! Here's the recipe!

Tater Tot Casserole

Ingredients

Yellow Onion

1 clove of Garlic

1lb of Ground Beef

Bag of Frozen Peas

1 Can Cream of Mushroom Soup

Milk (I just added until the consistency was what I wanted)

1 Bag of Tater Tots

Cheese

Directions

1. Brown ground beef.

2. Bake tater tots according to instructions on bag.

3. Dice yellow onion and garlic. Cook until onions are translucent.

4. Add beef to onions and garlic mixture.

5. Add peas and cream of mushroom soup. Mix well.

6. Add milk until the consistency is somewhat watery. (Sorry for no "exact" measurement!)

7. Crumble half of tater tots and add to casserole mixture.

8. Pour mixture into baking dish.

9. Top with remaining tater tots and cheese.

10. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

While this post was being written I was interrupted by a heck of a diaper (thanks Emma Claire), a puppy seizure (thank you Dixie) AND puppy throw-up (thank you again Dixie). May I mention that the puppy seizure and throw up were simultaneous...that was splendid. On a better note I got a package from Polkadot Posies which is always fun! This is where I get all of miss Emma Claire's BIG bows! I made a lot of bows for her but many of them are patterned and can't be worn every day, so when I need solid colors I go to Polkadot Posies! They're VERY affordable and they ship super fast! I placed my order YESTERDAY and it was here this morning! And no...I was not paid to say all of that ;-) I am just really excited to get another set of bows!

I'm so excited because we have friends visiting us this weekend! The Hubster's very best friend, Candler, and his sweet girlfriend, Alecia, are here staying with us!

Aren't they so cute?! :-)

One last thing...the Hubster is getting off work "early" tonight!!! Instead of leaving at 6:30pm he gets to come home at 4pm! YAY! Now with his commute he'll still get home pretty late but it will be earlier than this whole week!

Whew...that was a VERY random post!

I hope you have a great weekend!!!

Seasons

Each night at about one in the morning I am emailed a daily bible verse along with a little devotional. Last night however I didn't get my email. At the time I was too busy tending to a certain young lady to notice. Emma Claire decided that two hours was a sufficient amount of sleep for the both of us. We went to sleep at midnight and were up at two and she hasn't slept for more than 30 minutes straight since. Sigh. She just fell back asleep and I'm afraid to try and sleep for fear that she'll just wake up again in 15 minutes. Anyways, this morning around 8 I got my daily bible verse email and it couldn't be more perfect for the stage of life I'm in. All of you brand new Mamas out there will totally understand where I'm going with this. I hope by sharing this it will give you some comfort as it did me this morning. I have a feeling that this is also going to become my middle of the night mantra!

"To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven" Ecclesiastes 3:1 

Yes it's true I didn't get but a few hours of sleep last night but this is a season of my life and I know that it is going to pass and once it is gone I will miss it. While getting no sleep is frustrating in the moment, when I stop and think about the time I'm getting to spend with my baby girl I remember that I should cherish these moments because soon they will be gone. I am also going to work on something that was said in my devotional this morning:

"Try to remember in the hard times as well as the good times that God is with us and will walk us through whatever season we are in and we will learn as we come through. He is faithful!"

Now I'm going to try and get a little bit of sleep and I hope this sweet one will cooperate and let Mommy sleep for longer than 30 minutes ;-) We will all be much happier if that happens!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Happy Wednesday everyone! I'm linking up with Jamie from This Kind of Love today!

What I'm Loving today...

{One}

My Sweet Hubby/Emma Claire's Daddy

He works SO hard, I am so proud of him! Lately he's been leaving the house at 5am and not getting home until 8pm :-( This has been hard since he works so hard all day long he is exhausted when he gets home so we usually head to bed right after dinnertime. AND on top of all of that he is working to finish up his masters so he has LOTS of homework lately. I am just so proud of everything he is doing for our little family. He comes home and spends as much time with Emma Claire as possible...hence holding her while she sleeps and he works :-) Which is pretty adorable.

{Two}

My Sweet Sweet Smiley Baby

Be still my heart...I cannot get enough of this cute face! I'm also loving that for the past two nights she has slept for two four hour stretches and has only been up for an hour in between!!! Hallelujah!

Happy baby before bath time.

I just love her smiles more than anything else in the whole world! I can't wait until her smiles become more intentional :-)

{Three}

My Fur-Babies

I promise I haven't forgotten them :-)

{Four}

Made Up Dinners

I made a yummy tater-tot casserole a few nights ago. I just kind of made it up as I went along and I think it's one of my favorite dinners I've made in a while! In it is ground beef, onions, peas, cream of mushroom soup, milk, and crushed up tater-tots. Then I topped it with tater-tots and cheese!

{Five}

Big Bows

Hehe her face cracks me up in this one! It's like she's thinking..."holy cow, is Mom serious with this bow?!" This was her first time to wear a BIG bow and she was such a trooper and just looked so cute! A double name and a big ole' bow...doesn't get much more southern than that, if she was in one of her smocked outfits we'd be all set ;-)

Nursery Rocking Chair

I've been planning to share all of my nursery project before and afters since I started working on the nursery. I'm going to share the rocking chair makeover first. I got this chair at our flea market in Waco last spring before I was even pregnant. It was only $15 and I had to have it, even though I didn't know what I was going to do with it. Isn't it funny how some things work out ;-) You can read my original post about it HERE.

Here's the before...

And after...

I just love the way it turned out! The curves make it so girly and whimsical. I got the fabric at Joanne's fabric back in Texas. My Mom helped me paint the chair and re-cover the seats and my Dad screwed the seats into the chair. Originally the seats were glued down, not very secure. I love that my parents helped me finish this chair and it's now in Emma Claire's nursery :-)

Stay tuned for more nursery project before and afters!

Emma Claire Two Weeks

I know I'm going to be saying this the rest of my life but I cannot believe how fast the time has gone! Emma Claire is two weeks old and already has changed so much since we brought her home.

Emma Claire: Two Weeks

Loves: Making silly faces, cuddling with Daddy while he does school work, eating (A LOT!), car rides, being held, dancing with Mommy and Daddy, bath time

Eating: Breastfeeding is going much better. My milk production is up which is wonderful. However someone thinks that she can eat CONSTANTLY. I was worried that this was a sign that my milk production was low but after pumping to see how much I produce versus how much she was eating I'm not concerned. I make way more than she eats and she HATES taking a bottle. So we're back to "normal"...whatever that is now! HA! We're working on a schedule but she needs to eat so frequently that it just isn't happening yet but I'm confident that it will. I'm not going to stress out over it!

Sleeping: Sleep has not been quite as good as her first week. She tends to only sleep two hour stretches which is to be expected because of her tiny tummy size. I just pray that we will start sleeping for longer stretches of time at night. Last night she fell asleep at 10pm and slept until 1:30am then was awake until 3am and slept until 5am and was awake until 7am and slept until 9. I officially got up with her around 6:30am and we cuddled and watched the  news until she fell asleep. As I type we are working on a nap...it's been in the works for about an hour now ;-) So she has been up since 9am..that's almost four hours awake!

Fun Facts: Emma Claire went out to eat for the first time yesterday! We went out to lunch with friends and she slept the whole time! After we went to the farmers market where she continued to sleep. When we got home she woke up and Daddy fed her a bottle of breast milk and then she was awake and alert. She loves people and had a great time meeting Jack and Kelly. Kelly held her and she was so GOOD!

Mommy Moments: I am feeling MUCH better and breastfeeding is getting easier and easier each day.

Firsts: First time out to eat (at the Bungalow Alehouse), Emma Claire pooped on Mommy for the first time ;-) we skyped with Aunt Paige, Aunt Rachel and Grammy and G-Pop this week, Emma Claire had tummy time today for the first time! 

 Picture Perfect

I love waking up to this face each morning

Her hair is getting SO LONG! I can actually make it stick up hehe :-)

Someone did NOT want her picture taken!

This makes my heart melt

Sweet princess

Out to eat for the first time

Helping Daddy with homework for his Masters program

First time on our play mat and first tummy time! She liked it for all of about one minute ;-)

Ahhh...someone is finally asleep! However she woke up about 5 minutes after I took this ;-)

Just for fun, here's a comparison of this week and last week. I can't believe how much she's changed already!

Bathtime Baby

Emma Claire LOVES bath time! She's a little water baby.

Nothing sweeter than this little face. I just love wrapping her up after bath time! Can you almost smell that freshly washed baby smell?